


Death is Not the End (But it Feels Like it)

by MalecAcid



Category: The Umbrella Academy (TV)
Genre: Allison Hargreeves Needs A Hug, Angst, Ben Hargreeves Deserves Better, Ben Hargreeves Needs A Hug, Canon Compliant, Diego Hargreeves Needs A Hug, During Canon, Gen, Grief/Mourning, Heavy Angst, Hurt No Comfort, Implied/Referenced Character Death, Klaus Hargreeves Needs A Hug, Luther Hargreeves Needs A Hug, No Incest, Number Five | The Boy Needs A Hug, Pre-Canon, Vanya Hargreeves Needs A Hug
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-12-08
Updated: 2020-12-08
Packaged: 2021-03-09 18:40:47
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,589
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27950924
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/MalecAcid/pseuds/MalecAcid
Summary: All caring about Ben led to was more pain. They all cared and he still died. They all cared and he was still gone.So, they just broke apart even further, unwilling to go through that pain again.ORAll the sibs and their perspectives on losing Ben.
Relationships: Allison Hargreeves & Ben Hargreeves, Ben Hargreeves & Diego Hargreeves, Ben Hargreeves & Everyone, Ben Hargreeves & Klaus Hargreeves, Ben Hargreeves & Luther Hargreeves, Ben Hargreeves & Vanya Hargreeves, Number Five | The Boy & Ben Hargreeves
Comments: 12
Kudos: 25





	Death is Not the End (But it Feels Like it)

**Author's Note:**

> Honestly I do not remember when I started this fic nor do I remember why mckxmdmzmdm but I do actually really like it so 😔😔 hERE IT ISSS
> 
> ‼Warning for talk about death and people mourning someone and experiencing grief, also slight mention of drugs at the end‼️
> 
> Also I came up with the title on my own this time 😌😌😌😌😌😌😌 (well Gabe (whatisthiswhatamidoing) helped me bUT the point is it's not a song lyric kgjdjfjdj) 
> 
> But yeah 😔😔 I hope that this makes you cry bc it is very sad and I'll feel unaccomplished if you don't 😌😌

Five was fourteen years old when he felt real, genuine grief for the first time. 

He had time traveled forty years or so into the future, had ended up in an apocalypse, and had lost all of his siblings and his mother all at once. 

It was hard, losing everyone. He loved them all, and then, they were gone. He left them behind. 

He was alone in the apocalypse for so, so long, with nobody to keep company but Dolores. 

One thing he never would've expected, though, was how boring an apocalypse could be. 

There was no one to talk to, nothing to do, so he would usually turn to books when he was too exhausted to work any more equations on how to get back to his family that he missed so much. 

Five had only been stuck for a year when he eventually found Vanya's book buried beneath the rubble of a library. 

He had found it, had stashed it in his wagon right next to Dolores, and didn't look at it again for weeks. 

He usually avoided any context of his family, any reminder of what he'd lost, but when he did think about it, he was mostly numb to the whole ordeal. 

He knew that he would get back to them. He had to. 

Eventually, when he had finally settled into a fairly still intact town hall, he was able to open up the book and start reading. 

Each of them had their own section that Vanya had written about them, and Five read the first four fairly quickly, giving a slight smile at some parts and grimacing at others. This book definitely did not go down well with any of their siblings, that was for sure. She revealed everything about them, and Five was positive that she didn't ask before she put this information out into the world. 

His section was surprisingly the longest. He read through it slowly, soaking up every detail, every word, that he could. He and Vanya had always been close, and he was happy to see that she hadn't forgotten him. 

That was the thing that scared him most, he thinks. The thought of being forgotten. 

When he eventually got to the part in his section where he disappeared, he had to set the book down for a second. He put it back in the wagon next to Dolores where it had been for all the weeks before. It took three days for him to pick it up again. 

Five read about how much he'd hurt his favorite sibling, read about how much he'd hurt them all. 

It took a few days, but he did eventually manage to get past his section, and he quickly moved on to Ben's. 

Five and Ben were almost as close as Five and Vanya were, and Five was excited to read about the brother that he'd missed so much.

That excitement immediately dimmed to nothing as soon as he read the word 'dead.'

His favorite brother, dead at seventeen, and he didn't know how to fix it. He didn't think that anything had ever hurt this much. 

According to Vanya's book, that was the final breaking point for their dysfunctional family. If Five disappearing was like dropping and making a glass crack, then Ben's death was like throwing the glass at a wall and causing it to shatter into a million pieces. 

Just like in Five's section, there was nothing bad about Ben in his. Perks of being considered dead, Five supposed. Weirdly, he didn't think that their other siblings would mind. 

Five didn't know what Ben was like in his last four years of life, but in his first thirteen he was definitely the kindest out of all of them. No matter what any of them did, Ben was always there for them. 

He would read silently with Five, paint his nails with Allison, give Luther ideas for his poetry, listen to Vanya play her violin, and sneak out at night with Diego and Klaus. He was always there for them. All of them. 

Five had lost all of his siblings at once, but he was going to get them back. All of them.

* * *

Allison watched it happen. 

She was seventeen when she watched her brother get torn apart by the beings in his stomach. Seventeen. 

She was standing watch while he was killing off the remaining robbers. It was supposed to be like always. He was supposed to kill the robbers and come out of the room to where Allison was waiting. They were supposed to walk to the limousine together where Luther and their father were waiting. 

She was just starting to wonder what was taking Ben so long when the screaming started. 

The victims of the Horror rarely screamed after the first second, they were killed too quickly and the screaming in that moment had stopped long ago, so Allison knew that something was really, really wrong. 

She ran to the door separating her and her brother and ripped it open. Before she could open her mouth to say Ben's name he had already collapsed to the floor, splattering blood everywhere, including on her. 

She wiped the blood off of her mask so that she could see, and ran forward at the sight of Ben's moving chest. He was still breathing. 

She collapsed onto her knees beside him, ignoring the blood and quickly starting to pick him up despite his groans of pain. The adrenaline that had been coursing through her veins made it feel like she was picking up paper. 

The adrenaline didn't stay for long, though. She only got halfway towards the exit of the building where the car was waiting before her arms gave out and she had to put Ben on the floor. She looked up to his face and her heart skipped a beat when she saw that his eyes were closed, but she moved her fingers up to his neck to find a pulse and sighed in relief when she felt the beat of his heart. It was weak, but it was there. 

She collapsed fully on the floor, wrapping her arms around her legs and pulling them to her chest. She didn't know what to do. 

Allison would have been thankful that her father came in at that very moment if it had saved Ben, but it didn't. 

Ben was dead. The brother that would make her french toast when she was sick because it was her favorite food, the brother that would paint his nails with her because Luther wouldn't, the brother that loved her, was dead. 

She didn't think that she had ever felt like this before, even when Five had left. It felt like every single inch of her body had been drenched in freezing cold water. She was numb. 

When Five had left, there was a chance that he would come back. Every day that came and went without him showing up in the kitchen lessened her hope, and at this point she had had none at all for a very long time, but it was slow. The realization that Five was most likely never going to come back was a slow one. It hurt so much less. But Ben… 

Allison watched it happen.

* * *

Luther had never really truly felt guilty for anything. 

Sure, he once broke Grace's favorite vase, had ripped a page in one of Ben's books, but that kind of guilt lasted a week at most. He would apologize, and it would be over. 

This guilt, though… 

This kind of guilt lasted in him forever. And he never even got the chance to apologize. 

He was seventeen when he saw the dead and bloodied body of his brother be carried to the car he was sitting in, waiting innocently for him to return so that he could tell him about the poem he had been working on while he had waited. 

Instead of excitedly reciting words to his brother, though, he got to help wrap him up in a white blanket that quickly turned red. 

They returned to the academy fairly quickly, and Luther immediately went up to the bathroom and attempted to scrub the blood off of his hands. Ben's blood. 

He splashed his face with water too, willing his thoughts away. All they did was come in even stronger than before. 

He was the one who told Ben to hurry up getting ready for the mission. 

He was the one who told Ben to kill off the rest of the robbers. 

He was the one that sat in the limousine while Allison kept watch. 

He was the one that _wasn't there_. 

He was the one that killed Ben. 

At the funeral later that week, his father only cemented those thoughts even further into his head. 

He could have done something. 

He didn't do enough. 

He could have saved him. 

It was his fault, his fault, his fault. 

He was seventeen.

* * *

Diego never thought that he would have to lay next to the dead body of his brother, but then again, weirder things had happened. 

None more painful than this, though. 

He hadn't been on the mission where Ben had died. He had been stuck in the infirmary for the past week with a large stab wound on his side from the last mission. 

It was still healing, so when Grace rushed in with one of his siblings on a stretcher, Reginald walking in behind her, he attempted to sit up and see, biting his lip and holding back a noise of pain when his skin around the wound pulled. 

"Wha- what happened?" He questioned, still not quite able to see what was going on as they rushed around him. Reginald shushed him harshly, and he sat up straighter, wound almost completely forgotten as he blinked, his vision slowly clearing to see Ben with his stomach ripped open and not breathing. 

Diego moved to get off the table, his IV pulling uncomfortably, making him shudder. "What happened!" He said louder and more panicked, and Grace moved from where she was cupping Ben's cheek to walk over to Diego, lightly moving him back onto the table. 

"M-Mom? What happened?" He asked again, looking quickly between her and his brother. 

She shushed him lightly, taking the IV needle out and sticking another back in. He tried his best not to pass out as she scolded him softly. "You can't mess up your IV Diego." 

"Mom, what happened?" He asked again, leaning over to get a closer look at Ben. 

Before he could rip out his IV again, Grace lightly tapped his shoulder, and he looked back at her, watching as she grabbed a medicine he hadn't seen before off of the shelf and attaching it to the IV tube. 

"Mom, what is that?" He asked, Ben almost completely forgotten in that moment, and she hummed. "What is that?" 

She turned the dial that let the medicine drip down the tube into his arm, and he spoke louder. "What is that? What happened?"

"Just sleep, Diego dear. You need to rest so you can heal." She said, tapping his arm again, and suddenly, he was out. 

He woke up, and Ben's body was gone.

* * *

Vanya was the last of all of her siblings to find out about Ben. 

She wasn't told by any of them, though. She didn't see Ben immediately after they all came back from the mission, but she didn't question it much. Ben always closed himself off after missions, retreating first to the bathroom to try and get all the blood off of himself and then to his room. 

Vanya only started to get worried that next morning when he wasn't at the breakfast table, and the rest of her siblings' eyes were rimmed with red. 

She didn't say anything, though, and just continued to eat silently. 

It was a Saturday, so that meant that they had thirty minutes of free time. Vanya watched in confusion as each of her siblings retreated to their individual rooms, shutting the door quietly behind themselves before she did the same. 

She still hadn't seen Ben. 

Later that day at studying time when Pogo finally left them to study in peace, she decided to speak up. 

"Hey, uh, guys?" She started hesitantly, growing even more unsure of herself when they turned to stare at her monotonely. "Where's Ben?" 

Allison broke out into tears, then, and Luther glared at Vanya, grabbing Allison's elbow lightly and taking her out of the room. 

Vanya turned to Klaus, the only one left in the room, and he shrugged, taking a sip of the drink in his hands. 

She figured that that was her answer. 

Vanya had lost a brother four years before, but this was different. More permanent. 

There was always a chance with Five, a chance that he would come back. But with Ben… 

There was no chance. 

Things were quieter in the house afterwards, even though Ben was never the loudest. Diego trained more, Luther wrote less poetry, Klaus drank more liquor, Allison painted her nails less, and the songs Vanya played on her violin were sadder than usual. 

Their family was never really a _family_ , they were never close, never like the siblings she would read about in books, but they loved each other, they _cared_ about each other, and they cared about Ben. 

All caring about Ben led to was more pain. They all cared and he still died. They all cared and he was still gone. 

So, they just broke apart even further, unwilling to go through that pain again. 

Diego left the academy a day after Ben's funeral, and Klaus left a month after that. Luther, Allison, and Vanya were the only ones left for a long time, until Vanya left too. 

She left the academy and tried to leave her memories behind too. Tried to get rid of the memories and feelings of pain of losing the brother she cared about so much. 

All they did was keep coming back.

* * *

Klaus had never truly lost Ben. 

At least, not when his siblings did. 

He found out that he had died, and yeah, it hurt. It was horrifying and surprising and awful. But, he knew that he would see Ben again, no matter what state he would be in. 

And he did see him again. He saw him again and spent almost two decades with him by his side. 

Klaus knew that he was lucky, knew that he was the only one of his siblings that didn't have to go through that grief, knew that he would get to have Ben stay with him for a long time. 

He didn't feel lucky, at times. Ben would always nag at him, tell him to stop using drugs, to stop sleeping with suspicious people and the like. He wouldn't leave him alone most times, and he was an asshole. But Klaus loved him. He loved him, and he never thought that he would lose him. 

But then he did. 

He lost his brother, the person that spent seventeen years by his side, the person he never thought he would lose. He lost him. 

He didn't even get to say goodbye. 

They had looked at each other for a moment before Ben walked into the room where Vanya was like it was nothing, and then he never came back out. 

Klaus didn't lose the brother they all loved so much when the rest his siblings did. 

He was thirty-four.

**Author's Note:**

> Hope you likeddd 🥺🥺


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